Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com Andrea-Piacquadio-pexels.com-photo-credit.
October 26, 2023,
Well, everyone else is doing it.
True, that may be.
Usually not. Do you really know everyone else? Who is everyone?
But, for the sake of discussion, let’s say that everyone else is actually doing it?
Does that mean that you should do it?
A line of reasoning could be that humans tend to trend towards the lowest common denominator, take the easy way out and follow the group, even if what the group is doing is questionable.
We always love to share real life examples with you.
There is an associate in our group who invested a lot of time raising his children to be high achievers. The bar was upon graduating from high school, they must be straight A students or above 4.0 GPA and sports stars.
They exceeded his expectations.
Exceptional.
As important, he taught them that when they go on to financial success, very important, it will be your principles that get you through life and not your looks, money or power and control.
It is your principles.
Now, the other parent taught them that money, a great job and large homes are extremely important. Not terrible things for certain. But would you say those values will teach you to take the high road in life?
What about you? Which parent would your defined behavior say that you are most influenced by?
What happened with his children?
They would go on to be very successful financially.
Both have master’s degrees.
One of them is pursuing a career, and at least for the moment, has no intentions of getting married or having a family. The other married into a wealthy family and purposely does not keep in touch with poorer people that helped the child be successful when he or she needed them to help propel them at crucial moments. Question for you?
Which parent’s values would you say they more closely followed?
In your personal life, which values would you say you are more closely following?
Most of us follow the news on the major networks and real news stories online.
The world is filled with corruption, image void of principle is very important, there is excessive gun violence, is globally divided while being rife with extreme hate, anger and greed.
Governments are falling and wars are pervasive.
Is that consistent with the information you have received?
Unfortunately, you cannot control those things but there is something very important that you can control.
How you react to them.
Time to turn to film.
The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.
It portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook.
It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra.
For us, the story was fascinating.
In all of their struggles, what intrigued us the most was their obsession with gaining online friends and followers to eventually make a lot of money.
As far as we can tell, not one student seemed passionate about helping others or the less fortunate.
Not one seemed to be determined to always have high standards and principles as they achieve great success.
Time to look at a documentary that appears to be related.
The One Percent is a 2006 documentary about the growing wealth gap between the wealthy elite compared to the overall citizenry in the United States.
It was created by Jamie Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, and produced by Jamie Johnson and Nick Kurzon. The film’s title refers to the top one percent of Americans in terms of wealth, who controlled 42.2 percent of total financial wealth in 2004.
Stunning. Is that a good thing?
There is a book out titled Survival of the Richest: How we must tax the super-rich now to fight inequality.
The team at the informative information source globalcitizen.org shared, “Aptly titled, it takes a deep dive into the under regulated tax policies that have allowed the world’s wealthiest to pocket significantly large profits, even while global poverty levels have increased for the first time in 25 years.”
In our opinion, when people allow making money to become a primary focus over taking the high road and having high principles and standards, this is the kind of world it creates.
Are both pathways in conflict with one another?
We say not. At least not all of the time. Maybe not even most of the time.
Maybe.
Everything takes money to function. Better to have more money than you need so you are not extremely impacted by the economic twists and turns of the society that you live in.
Our question is, when they do come into conflict, which pathway takes precedent?
We need to be clear that what we are not talking about is morals.
That is such a subjective subject that we tend to stay clear of taking a position or stance on that. So much of that is tied to religion, which is not necessarily consistent with high principles, standards and integrity.
This discussion is more about your integrity to right behavior and how it ultimately affects others and, very important, yourself as well.
The consistent intelligent source psychologytoday.com adds, “Research has established a strong correlation between integrity and increased self-esteem and life satisfaction. Individuals who prioritize intrinsic values, including integrity, demonstrate higher self-esteem levels than those who focus on extrinsic values.”
Good to know.
We like differing points of views.
It’s time to walk over to the bookstore.
While this book is not necessarily in agreement with what we have stated here, it appears to offer an intriguing view.
Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality Hardcover – February 7, 2006
By Henry Cloud (Author)
Integrity. It is more than simple honesty. It’s the key to success. A person with integrity has the — often rare — ability to pull everything together, to make it all happen no matter how challenging the circumstances.
Drawing on experiences from his work with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and individual leaders, Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist and nationally syndicated radio host, shows how our character can keep us from achieving all we want to (or could) be.
In Integrity, Dr. Cloud explores the six qualities of character that define integrity. He uses stories from well-known business leaders like Michael Dell and sports figures like Tiger Woods to illustrate each of these qualities. He shows us how people with integrity:
- Are able to connect with others and build trust
- Are oriented toward reality
- Finish well
- Embrace the negative
- Are oriented toward increase
- Have an understanding of the transcendent
Success is not related to only talent or brains. There are a lot of bright, talented people who are never successful. And the most successful are not only the ones with the most talent. The real factor, Cloud demonstrates, is the makeup of the person. All of us can grow in the kinds of real character that bring about fruitful relationships and achievement of purpose, mission, and goals. Integrity is not something that you either have or don’t, but instead is an exciting growth path that all of us can engage in and enjoy.”
Makes sense. A progressive pathway. Something to be worked at.
Here is what we can say.
Making integrity and principles a priority leads you to live a life, not so concerned about how others view you but the deep satisfaction you receive, from how you view yourself.
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OPENING PHOTO Andrea-Piacquadio-pexels.com-photo-credit. Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_Percent_(film)
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/wealth-inequality-oxfam-billionaires-elon-musk/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-school-walls/202304/the-integral-role-of-integrity
https://www.fciwomenswrestling2.com
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
https://fciwomenswrestling.com/
